Thursday, September 24 2015 15:30

Rift in Azerbaijan-EU relations may bring to serious consequences, famous analyst Sergey Markedonov told ArmInfo.

 

EU Parliament Resolution containing critical assessments of  human rights in Azerbaijan caused a series of Baku's harsh statements towards EU. Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs canceled the visit of EU Parliament delegation to Baku, which threatened the negotiations on Azerbaijan-EU strategic partnership.

 

"However dissent between Brussels and Baku will not go too far, although the West can show fidelity to principle which it has expressed in the Middle East multiple times. However, EU and the USA will condone antidemocratic actions of Baku's authorities in order to keep Russia from strengthening its positions in the South Caucasus.

 

Markedonov emphasizes that new contradictions will arise between Baku and Brussels amid upcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan on November 1. As a counter to EU, Russia considers Baku's authorities as a predictable and sustainable partner. Russia sees any involvement from outside in the elections as an attempt to threat the sovereignty and a sign of a "color revolution".  In this context, the analyst foresees that Moscow will once more recognize the elections in Azerbaijan as legitimate.

 

However, the analyst thinks it is too early to talk about Baku's change in foreign policy in the near future, taking into account that Azerbaijan's relations with EU significantly differ from its relations with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Markedonov pointed out that Azerbaijan has never considered European direction of foreign policy as priority and emphasized that Azerbaijan is only interested in energy partnership with EU, which does not involve Europeans' guidance in democracy.

 

"Not only a range of European countries, but the USA are also interested in partnership with Azerbaijan based on a principle of "oil in exchange for democracy" and have a final aim to make Baku "an energy counterbalance" to Moscow. In this context Azerbaijan may not bother about rift with the West. Baku will be criticized moderately although it will not be permitted to forget about "democratic values", the analyst notes.  "Azerbaijan's authorities are not interested to finally decide which power center to choose. Baku cannot turn to Moscow because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Russia's strategic partnership with Armenia. This brings to necessity to have relations with the West as a counter to Russia, on the base of cooperation in energy sector" the analyst summarized.